


Safe and Soundless

by cat_77



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Injury, M/M, loss of hearing, possible permanent injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-01-31 13:55:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21447286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cat_77/pseuds/cat_77
Summary: Set in a dystopian, cyber-punk future with echoes of the past, Arthur is forced to leave an injured Merlin behind.  The ensuing rescue reveals a little more than he expected.
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 66





	Safe and Soundless

**Author's Note:**

> For the "loss of hearing" entry at hc_bingo.
> 
> * * *

The explosion was deafening. The very ground around them shook and a combination of brick and steel filled the air, or at least it did for the brief moment before it all came crashing down again. Hands tugged at him, urged him to run, to get out of there, but he could not. More precisely, he would not, as he knew just who had been caught in the center of it all.

Leon bodily hauled him upright and Percival didn’t even give him the dignity of trying to get his feet under himself before he tossed him over one of his enormous shoulders like a sack of rations and simply walked away. “Merlin is back there!” he tried, voice muffled against the pack his supposed savior also wore.

“And so are Cenred’s forces,” Leon countered. He even gestured through the dust in case Arthur couldn’t see the uniformed minions for himself. They were already converging upon the rubble, goggles down and gear lit as they scanned for heat signatures despite the multitude of small blazes that were dotted along the destruction.

Arthur keyed the sequence on his gauntlet to help hide their own signatures, though a plain visual purview was still possible if someone happened to switch to manual and the smoke cleared enough. “We need to go back! And you need to put me down!” he ordered.

“It’s precisely your want to go back that makes us hesitant to put you down,” Gwaine commented as he joined them. “Cenred gets his hands on you, and years’ worth of work goes down the proverbial drain.” He cocked his head to the side as he listened to something via the earpiece he wore and nodded, shoulders lowering ever so slightly even if his weapon was kept at the ready. “They found a body. Still breathing, but not in good shape. Nothing on it to tie it to rebels, so they are bringing it to Central for treatment,” he reported. He ran a hand through his dark hair, a nervous tell, but also let out a breath of relief. Central had far better medical tech than they currently had at their disposal despite how much they had snuck and stolen in recent months, and they all knew it. If Merlin was injured enough to be called only a body, he was going to need it.

Arthur swore he felt even Percival’s massive form relax at the news and was once again grateful that the idiot he knew so well never wore any identifying gear. Or, if he did, had the means to hide it far better than any of them ever did. Not that locating an Unknown in the midst of the stronghold that was Central would be any easier, but at least there was a chance Merlin might survive long enough for them to attempt the rescue.

They made it back to base without further incident, mainly because they took the long way around. Dusk had already come and gone and they relied on implants, augments, and innate senses of memory to find the cloaked hideout. The Kilgharra system scanned them and allowed entrance, cataloging their remaining gear and missing cohorts so that they wouldn’t have to. He had barely crossed the threshold before Gwen called out, “Just confirmed via the Aithusa link, three Unknowns brought to Central, one matching Merlin’s description.”

Gwaine and Leon added his gear to their own as they ditched it to the various charging stations. That left him solely with his Tag to report his own vitals, and a Reader so that he could actually see the same screens Gwen currently had pulled up yet still scrambled even in their supposed secure location. Gwen looked less than pleased at the injuries the one little piece of tech tattled about, but let it pass, mainly because the readout she presented was flashing all sorts of additional warnings.

“How bad is he?” Arthur asked without preamble.

“Last intel is from nearly an hour ago and they were still triaging,” she warned. Her hair was braided back and gear on as though she were ready to storm out of there herself to verify things, despite the fact they tended to keep her at the base for her own protection. If anyone traced the upgrades they used to her, she would light up the night with calls for her capture. She bit her bottom lip in a way that usually meant not-good news, before she took a breath to steady herself and continued. She pointed to the screen in question and dutifully reported, “Looks like a lot of scrapes and bruises, a broken arm, ankle that is being assessed for break versus sprain, and a massive concussion.”

Arthur let out a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding. While not ideal, it was far better than the alternative. “Anything else? Security? Suspicions?”

“Oh, that is not good,” a raspy and gravely voice sounded from behind him.

Arthur turned to find Gaius limping towards them. His ocular implant was fixed upon the screens and there was a slight whir of a noise as his bionic leg shuffled close. “You should be in bed,” Arthur chided.

“I should be dead,” Gaius corrected, and he wasn’t completely wrong. The man was far older than any but the richest and most powerful of society, and was not lucky enough to have their quality of tech to keep him alive. They did what they could, but it was only a matter of time and they all knew it. Well, a matter of time, stubbornness, and one other thing that very few others ever had, but the tech fought that as much as it also kept him alive.

Gwen stood and offered him her chair, her various connections reshaping and retracting as needed. When he hesitated, she glared and he reluctantly took it. She didn’t even pretend to circumvent the obvious and asked what all of the others wanted to know. “Have you been able to contact him yet?”

Gaius shook his white and withered head. “Central has some powerful wards, despite the supposed very few of us that they would need protecting from,” he replied with a cough. The wheeze at the end was worrisome, as was the fact that they were running low on spare oxygen canisters and the air quality had yet to go below a level nine for months. “That said, this is Merlin we are talking about. If he had the ability, he would try to make contact. I fear he is not yet conscious enough to do so.”

“Will his, um, abilities, er, talents be caught by those wards?” Percival asked. He made a face, always having trouble voicing what he had been taught was not real and would be considered evil incarnate even if it was. He flattened his lips together as he searched for the words, and eventually just blurted, “Would his magic set them off and put him at risk?”

Gaius tapped his own lips in thought for a moment before he relented and admitted, “There is a slim chance. But Merlin has shells around shells around shells of his own personal wards. They might pick up that he has the potential for an innate talent, but it should show as weak and unused until those shells are broken.”

“Untapped versus User, then,” Gwaine summed it up for them all. Neither were good things in the view of the controlling political party, though one was considerably worse than the other.

“So, he would be tossed in with the lab rats to be tested and possibly collared versus them realizing they hold one of the most powerful remaining Users left on this wretched Earth,” Arthur sighed. He didn’t mention the part where, if those shells cracked or if Merlin was at risk enough, he may well reveal his true talents in an attempt to escape, which would either get him killed outright or make him a target broadcasted via every signal and wave within Cenred’s control. Given just how far and wide that control had grown to, there would be nearly nowhere for him to hide. Mix in the standard reward, likely upped for a catch like him, and even friends and allies would be temped to turn.

“Better than tortured for information and then dissected,” Gwaine muttered, but it wasn’t exactly a comfort. Louder, the other man asked, “How long do we have before there is a risk?”

Arthur himself answered this one based upon far too much insider knowledge of the subject matter. He had been unlucky enough to be around a confused and concussed Merlin in the past, and had the scars to show for it, even if he usually tried to hide such things from all involved. It wasn’t Merlin’s fault after all; it was Arthur who had made the mistake of trying to wake him in precisely the way he had been told not to, setting off a remarkable amount of safeguards. “If he wakes and is at immediate risk, his defenses might activate without him being fully able to hide them. The ward system is improving daily though, which begs to question how and I believe it is from co-opting some of the supposed rare magic users, previously Untapped or no, to help out in exchange for their lives or the lives of their loved ones. We need to get him out of there sooner rather than later.”

“Before he decides to seek out those Users and try to free them all, regardless of where their loyalties lie?” Gwen guessed knowingly. 

“He needs treatment,” Gaius cut in instead. “Central has resources we do not. If they can at least get him on the path of recovery, we can go from there.”

“You want us to leave him there?” Gwaine asked incredulously. There were murmurs from the others, some of which had been on the mission and some from those who had stayed behind this time. Each and every one owed their lives to Merlin at some point, though, for some, it still might not be enough to keep them from taking advantage of his predicament to possibly better the world for themselves or their families. Loyalty only stretched so far on an empty stomach.

Gaius shook his head and then had to steady himself on the chair. “Not at all!” he insisted.

“You want us to steal what he would need atop the rescue mission our fearless leader is already planning,” Leon guessed. He didn’t seem opposed to the option but, then again, he knew how far a few med kits could go in a camp like theirs.

“Make a list and send it to our Readers; we still have to figure out how to get in, steal a priority patient, and get out without being caught,” Arthur ordered. He left to figure out precisely that, and knew the others well enough to know they were doing their own research on the same. They would discuss, integrate, come up with a plan of attack, and then throw that to that wayside when everything went belly-up anyway.

They ended up waiting nearly two whole days before they implemented their plan. Two days where he knew he drove the camp insane with the way he’d pace and demand updates, but at least some understood his connection to their personal little magician, and how that term applied very specifically to him more than anyone else. It took that long before their own tracking methods mixed with insider information from the Aithusa feed told them that Merlin was beginning to stir. Not fully awake, at least not for long, but consciousness was returning, and with it a lot of risk. 

Thankfully, they managed to get a lead as to where he was kept, or at least which wing in which medical building in Central, which was far better than they could have hoped for. Worrisome was that the wing in question was usually used for chronic patients, those with conditions that would be harder to cure via traditional means and usually required augmentation to carry on with daily survival. Arthur wanted the medical file to review for himself, or rather have Gaius with his actual medical knowledge review, and he wanted it sooner rather than later. Instead, what he got was the same listing of injuries as previously only slightly more detailed, with a promise to try to send any new findings to his Reader as soon as they had them.

Breaking in was sadly not as hard as it could have been. Pretend to be desperate enough to offer services, body and otherwise, to Central to use as they see fit, any you could usually get past the first layer of security. Given the sheer number of people starving under Cenred’s rule, they blended in with the daily crowd seeking the rare opportunity for something more. After that, it was a matter of slipping away, slinking through the shadows caused by the constantly flickering screens and feeds, blocking their personal Tags, and hacking through what they could. The wards around the city as a whole let alone the medical centers meant it would be incredibly difficult to communicate, both with Gwen and Gaius at their base, and with each other should they become separated. Those same wards meant that they needed to code their blockers or risk the constant scans discovering that they were there to do far more than visit an ailing relative, which was their go-to story should they be discovered in the wing with the patients. 

They were separated, mainly because Arthur planned precisely that. Let the others go through the door to the left and he pretended to not make the timed opening. They were under orders to continue should that happen, and so he watched as Percival frowned and Leon darted a suspicious look in his direction. Of course, he had forgotten one very important thing, which was that Gwaine was a slippery brat, and the other man appeared at his side just in time to drag him into a supply closet and away from a roving scout of a Bot. 

“Do you have a read on him yet?” Gwaine asked as though this was all part of the plan. When Arthur froze trying to think up an answer, he rolled his eyes. “Please do not play stupid. I know you two have far greater methods to keep tabs on each other than the rest of us should know about. Just let me know what you need from me to make this happen.”

With a sigh, Arthur flipped open his gauntlet to reveal a panel that was far from standard. A few bio-encrypted pokes later, and his view screen revealed a small dot of golden yellow. A few more, and he had the current vitals and more fed from a supposedly dormant Tag to his own. “Bones are healing along the standard accelerated path, sprain is still inflamed. Heart rate is stable, respiration slightly low. There is nothing here to show why he would be labeled as chronic though.” 

“Then we’ll just have to see for ourselves, won’t we?” Gwaine responded, and he really couldn’t argue with that.

There was a surprising lack of security once they entered the ward proper. Surprising, as he swore he saw Morgause herself, or at least someone who looked suspiciously like her with only her personal attendant next to them. Then again, she tended to want pure privacy for her work and might have sent others away. He had a suspicion that she wasn’t quite as loyal to Cenred as she pretended to be, but that same suspicion told him that she was all the more dangerous for it. She would use his resources while he plowed and plundered to his heart’s content with little regard to those who suffered in the process so long as she was given the means to further her own goals. Considering that Merlin himself had augmented his Reader long ago to pick up traces of the magical talents of Users and she damned near glowed from it, he had a feeling just who it was that corralled and controlled those Cenred would have otherwise put down outright.

She walked on and keyed a sequence into a door at the end of a long hallway. The brief moment the doors open caused his Reader to light up like it had never done before, and he had a sinking feeling that he knew where those with any and all talents were kept. A flash caught his eye and he saw Gwaine’s own gauntlet light with something similar and he resisted the urge to bang his head against something because clearly he was not the only one with augmented gear that would put them all at risk if caught.

“Tell me he’s not in there,” Gwaine all but growled as the lights faded once more.

“You mean you can’t tell where he is?” Arthur scoffed.

His companion shook his head. “Upgraded to read for magical signatures only. There’s enough here with the wards and the wannabe Queen Bee herself – and don’t even pretend you didn’t know she had some talents – but it’s mostly just a haze, just a really bright one behind that really warded door.” He paused and darted a look between that door and his gauntlet again before he dared to look up at Arthur. “I signed on to the resistance for Merlin as much as your grand plan. He wants to protect as many people with abilities like his as he can. He made this for me so that I could spot them, and also so I would know when I was at risk from far more than the usual, if you know what I mean,” he defended himself.

“How many people have them?” Arthur demanded. “A device like that could put all Users at risk, especially Merlin.” In Cenred’s hands, or even Morgause’s, it would only be a matter of time before those with even the slightest inkling of talents were captured with e device like that.

Gwaine held up his hands defensively. “I understand that, trust me, I do!” he insisted. “Merlin keyed it specifically to my bios. Only I can turn it off or on, and it’s a pain to get it going again – I mean that literally. If I do any step incorrectly, it will flash false intel and give me a thirty second window to try again before it shuts down completely in a way only he can reboot. Not even Gaius or Gwen would be able to fix it.”

Arthur nodded, not liking it but not having much of a choice. It would be a discussion for the future, once they got Merlin out safe and sound. 

They were running out of time before their window of escape closed completely, so they needed to make their move sooner rather than later. He was pretty sure which room they needed to access, as well as just how far the nearest exit route was from their current position. With that in mind, he stationed Gwaine in the clean room vestibule to serve as lookout, and slipped into the room proper to see just what sort of mess his favorite idiot had gotten himself into this time.

The room was a brilliant white that nearly hurt his eyes to gaze upon it. It also contrasted sharply with his own dark and admittedly dusty gear. In the center of the area was a familiar dark mop of hair atop pale and bruised skin that was only partially concealed by the gown and blankets. One arm was in a wrap that served as a cast, and there was a sizable healing gash above his left eyebrow along with a myriad of other scrapes. The clip version of a Tag was attached to him, and all of his vitals broadcasted out to the screens around him. Arthur couldn’t stop his eyes from darting to where his real Tag should be and nearly sighed with relief that the skin around it was unmarred and that there was absolutely no trace of the tech. That one little device could technically be used to trace back to the Hub and, if enough shells were breached, to the Kilgharra system itself though it would self-destruct the primary tracking systems should anything remotely unauthorized be detected.

He knew it would be easier for all involved if Merlin was conscious for at least this part of the escape so that he might possibly not flail and try to defend himself against unknowns that were actually friends, so he whispered, “Merlin? Merlin, it’s me…”

He started to reach forward, hoping touch would rouse his unresponsive more-than-friend, but froze when he heard a familiar voice caution, “I wouldn’t if I were you. He may not respond positively to such a surprise.”

His weapon was in his hand a split second later, aim true to his surrogate sister’s heart. “Morgana,” he spat. She had sided with Morgause and, in turn, Cenred. She had imprisoned their father and claimed his riches for her own, something surprisingly her cohorts had allowed with very little argument. In his mind, that just cemented how loyal she was to their cause, enough so that they never even questioned it. He had managed to get out with some very limited resources and some very loyal companions, and had helped build the resistance from the ground up with a combination of those, and anything else he could get his hands on, legal or otherwise.

“No hug for your sister?” she mock pouted. She eyed his supposed threat and then proceeded to act as though it was nothing at all. To be fair, they were within what was technically her stronghold and she could probably blink wrong and set off an alarm that would have him captured if not outright killed in a matter of seconds. It worried him that she typed at a tablet in her hands, and worried him more that she stepped close enough that it looked like she brushed some of Merlin’s dark strands away from his wound and back behind his ear in an almost loving or friendly manner. She wasn’t loving, and she was rarely friendly, which meant something else was at play.

“You know who he is, so why is he marked as an Unknown?” he asked instead of rising to her bait. 

“Because, if I named him, he would be dead before the day’s end,” she replied. She looked down at their once shared friend and shook her head. “I owe him more than that, to say the least.”

“Morgause…”

“He is injured to the point that even Morgause can sense he has potential abilities,” she said without preamble. “Her new methods… He will respond, sooner rather than later. Even with his sheer amount of talents, even if he bested her, he would never get past her personal guard or the wards around this place without some serious casualties.”

“So, are you here to taunt me with this knowledge? Capture me and use me to make him behave? He won’t, which means…”

“If you want him to live, if you want him to be safe, you need to get him out of here before she discovers he’s not just an Untapped,” Morgana cut him off curtly. She rolled her eyes at his look of surprise. “That you think so little of me… Yes, I would prefer that the man who saved my life multiple times lives, I’m silly that way.”

“But you betrayed us, you had our own father imprisoned. You’ll have to understand if I don’t take you at your word, dear sister,” he replied. It had be a rouse, yet another manipulation of hers. Make him trust her, even just a little, and then gloat as she betrayed him yet again.

“Our father sided with Cenred. He basically gave him the key to the kingdom, let him waltz right on into the city and destroy everything solely because he promised to destroy what he saw as horrible mutations at the same time. Horrible mutations that everyone else called talents. As in what makes Merlin so special. As in what he tried to torture out of me for years,” she seethed. She took a calming breath before she continued. “I tried to save who and what I could. I didn’t know of Morgause’ plans until too late. I honestly thought she was like me, wanting to help the others escape and just playing along until she had the resources to do so. For now, those that we find are at least alive if not living their best lives. I’m doing what I can, but something needs to give, sooner rather than later.”

“And that something is me,” a new voice chimed in.

Arthur’s head whipped around to find Merlin blinking up tiredly from where he lay on the bed. He futzed with the same ear Morgana had just been near, and made a face of discomfort for his actions. The fact that he was alive and breathing and proving he was as close to whole as possible warmed Arthur’s heart in ways he couldn’t put words to, but he couldn’t help but be worried about one very important thing: instead of the familiar blue gazing back at him, a dull almost-golden stared at him in its place. “Your eyes…” he breathed worriedly. It was a sign of his talents, of his magic. They glowed brightly whenever he used it, but there was no obvious spellwork now.

“Close them or take out the piece,” Morgana snapped. She sounded far more like the Morgana he knew for doing so. “I can only control the security feed for so long, and it’s hard enough to hide Arthur.”

Long lashes dipped to hide most of the betraying color, but Merlin protested, “But it’s the only way I know what you are saying. And I’d rather like to see just who’s around, especially if it’s my husband.” Arthur flinched at that, assuming Morgana would use that against them as well. Then he remembered she was one of the few who knew outright versus suspecting the extra layer of connection the two men held. Yet another thing that she had actually kept quiet about, truly, and he didn’t like that it made him question her loyalties. 

“Gaius or Gwen will figure out something soon enough,” Morgana said with a rare bit of what passed as kindness to her tone. She turned to Arthur to explain, “The blast did more damage than we originally thought. He has approximately ten percent hearing remaining in one ear and only fifteen in the other. I made a piece to augment this, but his magic fights it like magic fights all bio-enhancements. It’s not just his eyes, but a low-grade vibration that shows on scans as a fairly powerful Untapped. Now that he’s aware of it, he’s blocking that down to something far less severe, but we cannot count on that staying true if he gets stressed out or overtired.”

“Or tortured in the name of testing what he’s capable of,” Arthur finished for her. Her wince was more telling than any verbal reply. “Is the hearing loss permanent?”

“There was extensive damage,” she hedged. He raised his eyebrows to point out that he knew precisely what she was doing, they had been raised together for most of their lives after all, and she reached for a small device in her pocket instead. “Copy of all scans, with and without the augmentation. I altered the one for the official files to downplay his responses, but could not leave them out completely because it was fairly obvious to anyone even slightly sensitive to Users.”

He took it, knowing she knew he wouldn’t be dumb enough to plug it in anywhere important. “Why are you doing this?” he asked instead.

She attached a small device to the clip Tag Merlin had been wearing and he watched as all feeds showed steady and constant. She then proceeded to unhook everything else as needed until he was fully mobile once more, or as fully mobile as he could be with his injuries. She looked up and tucked a strand of her dark curls that had escaped her intricate bun behind her ear before she finally answered him with, “You mean when I could have Leon and Percival captured or Gwaine gassed with a snap of my fingers? I know precisely where your friends are and how to stop them, and could do so before you ever got a shot at me.”

Arthur tensed at just how much she knew, and she only raised a knowing and familiar eyebrow at him for his efforts. He darted a look over to the door to see Gwaine gazing in, seriously pissed off and clearly locked out while they played out their current debacle. “So, why?” he repeated.

“Merlin helped me when my own talents started to come through. He didn’t directly reveal his own, at least not his true strength, but he got me to people and places that could help,” she explained.

“You turned on them though,” he remembered. “Every single person who tried to help what they thought was an innocent little Untapped was rounded up, experimented on, and killed.”

“That was our father’s doing, not mine!” she snapped. “He knew what I was and used me as a tool to destroy the others. Why do you think I handed him over so easily? And then I used his intel, his tracking, his massive network of tech and everything else, to try to find the others and save them. Morgause helped at first, but I suspect she wants their power for her own. I’m not sure how or even why, but I’ve seen others grow weak as she grows that much stronger. I’ve been downplaying what they can do and getting as many out as I can, but it’s not enough and even I know that.”

Arthur shook his head. “Give me one reason why I should trust you, on any of this,” he baited.

“Because she and I built the Aithusa system together and she’s been feeding us all the intel we have on Central,” Merlin replied. He turned to Morgana then and offered one of his true smiles even if his eyes remained in their almost closed state. “You have saved lives, many of them, you have to believe that.”

“And I will save more,” she insisted. She checked something on a band around her wrist, “But none of us will be around to do any of this if you don’t get out of here right now! They’ve noticed the watch has been changed, and there has been an unauthorized login to one of the meds lockers. The place is going to go on lockdown in a matter of minutes.” The fact that it was minutes versus seconds spoke to her ability to delay it as far as Arthur was concerned. That, and likely protocols to verify there was an actual emergency versus a glitch or an underpowered serf trying to get something more for their family.

He assumed the login was Percival and Leon getting what was on Gaius’ list, but wasn’t going to say that much out loud. She would either figure it out on her own or knew already. Merlin trusted her, but he still did not, not completely. Too much had been lost, too much collateral damage to her grand plan even if she was telling the truth now.

She unlocked a drawer with a push of a button that lit up with her touch and pulled out a hypo. “Painkiller. He’ll need it to get through your escape and I’ll need a near overdose of it to explain why my signature was so near when it happened,” she explained. It verified what he had long thought: that even the upper echelon of Cenred’s people were monitored to some extent. She placed the hypo on the foot of the bed within his reach and added, “Merlin can scan it, and me, to make sure I’m telling the truth.”

His husband nodded at her words, and promptly injected himself with some before Arthur could stop him. He then took the small electronic piece from his ear and his eyes were wide and blue once more. His voice was rough, the pitch off and volume wrong when he said, “We can’t risk this being tracked. You made everything else, but this is pure Central.”

“I customized it myself, including the removal of the tracking chip, and without it you can’t hear,” she argued back, and Arthur watched the way Merlin tried to watch her lips when she spoke. She popped open a tiny panel on the side and took out the what looked to be not much more than a grain of green rice that he knew to be a standard energy source for augmentations before she pressed the piece into his hand. “At least take it, powered down, for Gwen to try to build something similar with? Maybe she can find a way to counter the effects.”

He nodded, but Arthur placed bets on the device being intentionally lost along the way. Merlin may trust her, but he would never trust anything potentially under Cenred’s control. Also, he was damned stubborn and would rather suffer himself than put anyone else at risk.

Arthur picked up the hypo and moved to hold it to her neck. “If we get out of here in one piece, I’ll have reason to potentially trust you,” he told her, and both knew it would only be the first step on a long road.

“The moment I’m out, all of my protections fall. The feed won’t be looped and I will not be able to unlock the doors or lessen the wards,” she warned. She cocked her head to the side to make it easier for him and requested, “Please tell Gwen that I will come home, eventually. That… I miss her. It’s not safe yet. Too many lives are still at risk.”

With that, she reached up and keyed the sequence before he could even push the button. He barely caught her before she fell to the floor and could not resist the urge to check to make sure she was still breathing and her heart was still beating. She was his sister, despite their differences. Though it appeared there may be fewer of those that he originally thought.

“Time to go,” he said, though Merlin was already in motion and Gwaine was already storming through the door to them.

Gwaine tossed them a medic uniform that Arthur was not even going to ask where he got it before verifying Morgana’s status for himself. They managed to get Merlin mostly dressed, at least enough to be passing at a distance. A look at the fallen body in the room and he commented, “There will be words later.”

Arthur ignored that and focused on the living, breathing man that he had barely fully let go of yet. They would escape. They would get to freedom. They would more than likely break right back in to try to save all of the others held captive by Cenred’s forces. He would just have to debate if a certain sibling counted as a captive, an ally, or an enemy.

She had been right about one thing in that the patrols greatly increased in the short time she was out. The three of them hid in the vestibule as another one passed and waited for an opening. Gwaine took the opportunity to reach over and tug Merlin to him just enough to press a quick kiss to his still bruised temple with a muttered, “It’s good to have you back.”

Arthur caught the way Merlin flinched from the action and reminded him, “He’s still injured, do be careful.”

Gwaine released him with an apologetic pat but still managed to roll his eyes in Arthur’s direction. “I was just trying to pick up the slack here. One would think you’d be a bit more enthusiastic about the return of your beau, especially since he’s upright and everything.”

And Arthur got it, really he did. It just took Gwaine’s antics for everything to fully hit him. Ever so gently, he pulled Merlin close. He cupped the barely stubbled chin and tilted his face upwards to make sure their gazes met and Merlin knew just how much emotion he currently held back. He lowered his head slowly, intending just a quick press of his lips given their current scenario, but soon found himself kissing the ever-loving daylights out of his lover. He ignored Gwaine’s cheer that that was more like it and instead focused on the touch, the taste, and the feel of someone that he thought he might have lost forever. 

Merlin kissed him back with just the same intensity, right up until he tried to hide a whimper when he moved wrong and Arthur forced himself to pull back. “Injured. Right,” he whispered, knowing Merlin couldn’t hear him but would understand anyway.

Or maybe not, as he reached back up and pulled Arthur back to him, nearly braining him with his reinforced wrap and earning a comment that the two of them were clearly meant for each other from their third which both promptly ignored. Eventually though, they both pulled back, a look of promise passed between them as they tried to focus on the actual escape part of the mission once more.

“Perfect timing, gentlemen, as I believe we have our opening,” Gwaine cut in. His hand was on the handle to the door and he only waited for Merlin’s eyes to flash gold for the briefest of moments, a sure sign that their opening would be just a tiny bit more likely to last.

“I looped the feed, but we should move,” Merlin whispered, pitch off even with that level.

Gwaine eyed him suspiciously, but headed out anyway. 

They ducked and dodged and hid as needed, a fair deal of luck and an obvious amount of magic on their side as doors opened and closed just when they needed them, or a cart happened to roll in the way before someone could spot them. More than once during the escape, Gwaine attempted to engage Merlin in conversation, idyll chat about life, the universe, and how screwed they were. Around the third or fourth time, he realized all of his efforts were in vain. “Merlin?” he tried again once they were finally outside of Central’s main gates. This time, he tapped his friend on the arm and tried to meet his eyes.

“I can’t hear,” Merlin confirmed in his new pitchy volume. “Might be permanent.” He was pale and sweaty, the sheer amount of effort he had just put forth combatting with the last remnants of the painkillers he had taken. His limp had grown far more pronounced, and he cradled his injured arm close to avoid the worst of the risk of it being hit or jolted by accident.

“Well, that explains why he ducked even less than normal,” Leon commented as he hurried up beside them and gestured towards where their stolen transport awaited. It was true, Arthur had lost count of how many times the they had pulled him down or over, or bodily covered him because he hadn’t responded to the usual chatter. It also verified just how close the others had stayed versus seeking their own safe escape on their own. He hadn’t heard nor seen them, but felt their presence on a near visceral level all the same.

Percival bodily lifted Merlin up and into the transport and waited for the others to get situated before he frowned, a myriad of emotions playing across his features. He then promptly took his gauntlet off of his arm and fitted it to Merlin’s own – the one without the cast. It was far too large and hung like an oversized metal cuff of a bracelet and seemed more in the way than anything else. He pulled up a projection and explained, “At least we can communicate until we find something better.”

Arthur watched as his words appeared on the sliver of screen, and then watched as Merlin’s face lit up in a non-magical way. “Thank you,” he said, and hoped the depth of his feeling made it across.

Leon looked to the screen, and then to his own, and nodded. “We’ll get you one that fits. Maybe a modified Reader. Gwen will figure it out,” he declared as if that made it fact. Unlike the augmentations, these would pure tech and not bio-based, at least nothing worse than being coded for his personal usage only, and might not even interact with his magic, at least not any more than his previous iterations had done so.

“We will figure this out, all of it,” Arthur agreed. There simply was no other option as far as he was concerned. Looking around at his friends, he knew he was not the only one with that opinion. He waited until the transport began to pull away before he turned to Merlin and chided, “And you overdid it with all that usage, don’t try to deny it. We get home and you will rest, is that understood?”

“Mother hen,” Merlin replied without heat. He then looked a little nervous when he admitted, “Also, it wasn’t just me.”

“Morgana was unconscious,” Arthur pointed out, confused. She had warned she wouldn’t be able to help and there was no way Morgause would be involved, at least not in a positive manner.

“You ran into Morgana?” Leon exclaimed, a combination of anger, annoyance, and worry all rolled up into one.

Gwaine shifted to verify no one was following them before he repeated his earlier warning of, “Words, Arthur. Many of them.”

Merlin shook his head though, or at least shook it as much as he could slumped as he was. “Not Morgana. The Untapped. Though maybe calling them Tapped at this point might be more accurate.”

“Okay, that words thing goes for you as well” Gwaine snorted. He glanced back to the others and said, “Our boy here was in a place that would kill him if they knew what he was, yet felt the need to use that which makes him, well, him. Wonderful, really. Is anyone here truly surprised?”

Merlin continued on as though not interrupted. “Felt them as soon as I was inside the wards. So many of them. Various strengths of talent, some being augmented and some fighting it. All of them want out. Well, those who have not yet undergone Morgause’s tender mercies.”

Arthur tried and failed not to sigh. “And you promised them you could get them to safety?” he guessed.

“I promised them I would use what resources I have, should I be able to do so,” Merlin confirmed. “They just made sure I had a higher probability of reaching that point.”

“How many and how can you verify none of them are working for the other side?” Percival asked.

Merlin looked ready to answer, but he also looked dead on his feet, so Arthur decided to cut off the current line of discussion with a simple, curt, “Later.”

There would be time for that later. There would be time for so many things later. After they got back to base. After Merlin received treatment. After Arthur himself personally verified each and every scratch and bruise that dared to mar his lover’s skin was taken care of to his satisfaction. After he welcomed Merlin home with far more thoroughness than he would ever exhibit in front of the others, Gwaine included. All of it. There would be time. Because there was an actual inkling of hope. For Merlin, for the not-so-Untapped, and even for his estranged sister. For now though, they would celebrate their safety, if not their soundness, and look forward to a time where there may be so much more.


End file.
